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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech

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Speaker 1: are you? So I've been teasing this topic for a while,

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Speaker 1: but I figured today we would finally dive into the

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Speaker 1: history of spy and surveillance balloons. We've heard a lot

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Speaker 1: of talk about this in the news here in the

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Speaker 1: United States this month, as the US military is shot

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Speaker 1: down a couple of objects that were thought to be

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Speaker 1: surveillance devices built by China, or perhaps, in at least

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Speaker 1: one case, an unidentified object that could have been a

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Speaker 1: surveillance or spy balloon. But so we shot it down

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Speaker 1: just to be on the safe side. But we're going

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Speaker 1: to get to all of that now. Before we talk

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Speaker 1: about China, we need to talk about the history of

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Speaker 1: using balloons and stuff like espionage and warfare, and that

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Speaker 1: brings us to beans. It brings us back to China.

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Speaker 1: So the story goes that a Chinese military genius named

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Speaker 1: Ju Liang, and I apologize for my terrible pronunciation. However,

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Speaker 1: he was known as Kong Ming, used a paper lantern

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Speaker 1: with a message written on it in order to call

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Speaker 1: for help when enemy troops were surrounding his forces. This

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Speaker 1: was one of the tactics he would use, and essentially

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Speaker 1: this sky lantern was a small hot air balloon. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I should probably talk about how a hot air balloon works.

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Speaker 1: Now you've probably heard that hot air rises, but from

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Speaker 1: another point of view, you really should say that, you know,

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Speaker 1: colder air sinks. This is because warmer air is less

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Speaker 1: dense than colder air. Cold air is more dense, so

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Speaker 1: it settles and the warm air gets pushed up. The

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Speaker 1: dense cold air sinks down, the warmer air is pushed

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Speaker 1: upward to float on top, and it just kind of

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Speaker 1: acts like that. It's a fluid, just as any fluids

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Speaker 1: where you would deal with different densities would do the

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing. Right. Well, if you have yourself

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Speaker 1: a container that's light enough, and you fill it with

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Speaker 1: air that is warm enough, the whole of that container

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Speaker 1: will become lighter than the air surrounding it and it

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Speaker 1: will rise. This is just a basic feature of fluid dynamics, y'all. So,

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Speaker 1: with a paper lantern made of thin material and a

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Speaker 1: heat source that can be suspended inside the lantern, preferably

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Speaker 1: held away from the walls of the lantern, or else

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Speaker 1: you're just going to set fire to the lantern. You

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Speaker 1: would have yourself a sky lantern. It needs to be

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Speaker 1: closed off obviously. If it's not, then the heat air

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Speaker 1: is just going to rise straight through the lantern, so

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Speaker 1: it needs to have a cap on the top. Lighting

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Speaker 1: the lantern means a small fire heats the air inside

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Speaker 1: the lantern to the point where the whole thing can

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Speaker 1: rise up into the sky and voila. You got yourself

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Speaker 1: a potential signaling device. You can see it, it's lit

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Speaker 1: up in the sky, and you know generally where it's

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Speaker 1: rising from. Assuming that is that the folks that you

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Speaker 1: want to signal can actually see the lantern from their

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Speaker 1: perspective or their downwind of the lanterns, so that they

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Speaker 1: have a chance to spot and or retrieve it if

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Speaker 1: it has drifted away from where you released it. If

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Speaker 1: the lantern floats in the wrong direction, you might find

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Speaker 1: yourself without the benefit of reinforcements. Kong Ming lived around

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Speaker 1: two hundred Common Era, and to this day, sky lanterns

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Speaker 1: are also known as Kongming lanterns. In China, they have

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Speaker 1: been popular in various festivals and celebrations, as can be

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Speaker 1: seen in the documentary Tangled when Rapunzel dreams of seeing

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Speaker 1: them in person. Also, just a quick shout out to

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Speaker 1: any tech stuff listeners who have been with this show

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Speaker 1: long enough to remember when I would refer to work

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Speaker 1: of fiction as documentaries. It has been quite some time,

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Speaker 1: all right. But sky lanterns are a long way from

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Speaker 1: spy balloons, right, I mean they would take centuries a

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Speaker 1: bunch of them to get to a point where humans

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Speaker 1: could turn to balloons for the purposes of observing others.

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Speaker 1: That's because early uses of balloons for the purposes of

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Speaker 1: seeing what the heck is going on over the hill

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Speaker 1: over yonder would require a real human being to be

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Speaker 1: lifted up into the sky, because it's not like we

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Speaker 1: had wireless sensors that could collect data and then beam

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Speaker 1: information down to us. We didn't even have wired sensors

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Speaker 1: that could do that. The sensors that we relied upon

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Speaker 1: were mostly connected to one of the five traditionally associated

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Speaker 1: with human beings. Heck, even the earliest weather balloon observations

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Speaker 1: involved humans going up with basic stuff like thermometers and

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Speaker 1: barometers to see what it's like up there in the

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Speaker 1: wild blue yonder. According to the US National Parks Service,

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Speaker 1: the earliest recorded example of an observation balloon dates back

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Speaker 1: to seventeen ninety four, during the French Revolution. That's just

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Speaker 1: a touch more than a decade after the Montgolfier Brothers

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Speaker 1: first wild France with their experiments with hot air balloons.

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Speaker 1: So the Montgolfier's built larger and larger balloons while experimenting

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Speaker 1: with hot air as a means to achieve flight. Their

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Speaker 1: earliest experiments just involved inflating a balloon and there was

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Speaker 1: no payload. That was probably a good thing, because one

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Speaker 1: of those earlier experiments saw the anchor strings on the

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Speaker 1: balloon break and the balloon rose to around six hundred

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Speaker 1: feet in altitude and there was no way to get

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Speaker 1: down apart from it cooling off enough to descend, because

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Speaker 1: once the air cools down, it gets more dense, and

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Speaker 1: if it gets dense enough, then it's no longer going

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Speaker 1: to be bulliant in the surrounding atmosphere. It's going to

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Speaker 1: come back down, right. So, in seventeen eighty three, three

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Speaker 1: important actual living beings took the very first hot air

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Speaker 1: balloon flight to carry a living payload. Now, earlier experiments

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Speaker 1: did include moments where strapping men who were holding on

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Speaker 1: to anchor lines were lifted off their feet, but those

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Speaker 1: don't really count like they weren't intended to go on

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Speaker 1: a flight. They were intended to hold the balloon down

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Speaker 1: while experiments were conducted, and occasionally they would be lifted

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Speaker 1: up like a foot or two before they would either

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Speaker 1: let go or the balloon would be pulled back down.

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Speaker 1: The three critters that actually went on this maiden voyage

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Speaker 1: were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster, which sounds

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Speaker 1: like the beginning of a joke, but no, these were

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Speaker 1: suggested by King Louis the sixteenth himself. Now why he

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Speaker 1: chose those particular three animals, I have no idea. I

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Speaker 1: also don't know if lou thought he was giving these

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Speaker 1: animals a real treat, or if he wanted to punish

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Speaker 1: them for some reason. There's so many unanswered quest stents

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Speaker 1: in history. This balloon ascended to around fifteen hundred feet

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Speaker 1: or so. It traveled about ten thousand feet until the

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Speaker 1: air inside the balloon had cooled enough for the balloon

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Speaker 1: to descend. It landed. The animals were all safe inside

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Speaker 1: the wicker basket that was attached to the balloon, so

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Speaker 1: they got out none the worse for wear. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how they felt during the flight, but they were

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Speaker 1: fine afterward. And not long after that, some brave pioneers

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Speaker 1: and ballooning decided they would become the first humans to

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Speaker 1: take flight in such a contraption. Now, at this stage,

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Speaker 1: the balloons featured a sort of container that had portholes

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Speaker 1: through which one could insert fuel into a brazier that

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Speaker 1: was suspended above the wicker basket that could hold people.

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Speaker 1: You know, that would be at the very base of

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Speaker 1: the balloon, and it would be right at the very

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Speaker 1: bottom of the opening for the balloon itself. Right, So

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Speaker 1: you filled this brazier up with fuel and you fire

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Speaker 1: to it. Heats up the air, the balloon inflates and

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Speaker 1: eventually becomes light enough to take flight. If you wanted

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Speaker 1: to go higher, you put more fuel into the brazier,

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Speaker 1: or if you just wanted to stay in the air,

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Speaker 1: you would put more fuel in because otherwise the fire

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Speaker 1: would burn down and the balloon would lose bullyancy and

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Speaker 1: it would come down. Right, you could also cause the

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Speaker 1: balloon to come down on purpose by introducing something that

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Speaker 1: would slow down or stop the combustion, like pouring water

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Speaker 1: through the porthole into the brazier to help extinguish the fire.

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Speaker 1: This would allow the air to cool and again the

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Speaker 1: balloon would come back down. These balloons were pretty risky.

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Speaker 1: You know, a quick change in wind could potentially cause

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Speaker 1: flames from this brazier to come into contact with the

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Speaker 1: inner wall of the balloon itself, which could potentially mean

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Speaker 1: that the balloon catches fire. Obviously that would be disastrous.

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Speaker 1: You would have an uncontrolled descent, ak a crash. And

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Speaker 1: there was also no way to steer these balloons, so

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Speaker 1: you were just subjected to the whims of the wind itself.

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Speaker 1: So you might think, oh, we're gonna go up, we'll

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Speaker 1: travel a few thousand feet and we'll come down in

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Speaker 1: that field over there, But because of the wind, you're like, nope,

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Speaker 1: we're coming down the louver. Move over, Louis. It marked

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Speaker 1: an incredible advance in science and technology. Even old Benjamin Franklin,

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Speaker 1: fresh off his hardened glass Armonica tour, took note of

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Speaker 1: the first hot air balloon flight while he was in France.

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Speaker 1: Around this same time, other scientists and daredevils had come

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Speaker 1: up with an alternative to hot air balloons because some

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Speaker 1: gases are pretty light, right like, they're lighter than the

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Speaker 1: surrounding atmosphere. Hydrogen, for example, is lighter than the air

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Speaker 1: that we're walking around in, and so thought the physicists.

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Speaker 1: If you were to fill a balloon with a very

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Speaker 1: light gas like hydrogen that could also float on air,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't need a source of heat to heat up

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Speaker 1: the gas. You would just need enough hydrogen to overcome

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Speaker 1: the weight of the balloon itself. But hydrogen comes with

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Speaker 1: a couple of drawbacks. The big one is that it's very,

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Speaker 1: very flammable see also the tragedy of the Hindenburg disaster.

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Speaker 1: But you wouldn't need or want an open flame anyway,

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Speaker 1: because again, the gas you're using is lighter than air.

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Speaker 1: There's no need to have a heat source to heat

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Speaker 1: the air inside the balloon. Now, the same year that

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Speaker 1: the Montgolfiers were launching hot air balloons, we got the

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Speaker 1: first flight of a hydrogen balloon and it carried a

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Speaker 1: payload of about twenty pounds or around nine kilograms. And

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Speaker 1: you might wonder where the heck did they get hydrogen gas?

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Speaker 1: Because hydrogen, while it is the most plentiful element in

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Speaker 1: the galaxy, is also notorious for bonding with other elements

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Speaker 1: like hydrogen and oxygen makes water, so you have to

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Speaker 1: put forth real effort to break those molecular bonds to

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Speaker 1: release hydrogen gas, and then you have to collect it. Well.

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Speaker 1: The researchers were using scrap iron and then they were

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Speaker 1: pouring sulfuric acid onto the iron. One of the byproducts

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Speaker 1: of the chemical reaction that would follow is hydrogen gas.

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Speaker 1: They captured this with a system of lead pipes that

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Speaker 1: fed into the interior of the balloon, and this allowed

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Speaker 1: them to inflate the gosh darn thing. At the end

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Speaker 1: of seventeen eighty three, the Fringies successfully flew a hydrogen

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Speaker 1: based balloon just a few days after the first successful

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Speaker 1: hot air balloon flights. So these things are progressing in tandem.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's really amazing how quickly this took off.

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Speaker 1: That was a terrible, unintentional pun which I'm sure I'm

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Speaker 1: going to repeat throughout this episode. Anyway, Unlike a hot

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Speaker 1: air balloon, a lighter than air gas balloon doesn't need

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Speaker 1: to constantly be refueled, so it just will stay up

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Speaker 1: there for as long as the balloon is able to

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Speaker 1: contain this lighter than air gas, so to be able

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Speaker 1: to control things like altitude, the balloon would have ballast.

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Speaker 1: That's bags of stuff that's used to weigh it down.

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Speaker 1: So if you wanted to go higher, you had to

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Speaker 1: ditch some ballast. You have to throw some weight overboard,

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Speaker 1: like a sand bag or something. This would decrease the

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Speaker 1: weight of the balloon and allow it to fly higher

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Speaker 1: in altitude. But in order to come down, you would

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Speaker 1: have to have a release valve that would let you

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Speaker 1: have a controlled release. Controlled is the important part of hydrogen.

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Speaker 1: You let out a little hydrogen, you lose some buoyancy,

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Speaker 1: you start to come down. The more hydrogen you release,

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Speaker 1: the more you come down. And if you're very careful,

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Speaker 1: you're able to have a controlled descent and land without crashing.

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Speaker 1: But you know, when you have that flammable true goal

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Speaker 1: where you've got fuel and oxidizer and heat, things get dangerous.

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Speaker 1: So hydrogen is fuel with a big, big f And

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Speaker 1: if the hydrogen were to catch fire, believe me, you

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Speaker 1: would be well and truly ft. It wouldn't be so

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Speaker 1: much a fire as it would be an explosion. We

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Speaker 1: get back to the Hendenburg disaster there, but there were

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Speaker 1: also other factors that contributed to that particular tragedy. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: the Hindenburg was not designed to use hydrogen gas in

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Speaker 1: the first place. It was meant to use helium. Helium

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Speaker 1: is also lighter than air. You know, we're all familiar

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Speaker 1: with helium balloons, but unlike hydrogen, helium is not flammable,

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Speaker 1: so it's safe to have in areas where you've got

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Speaker 1: things like internal combustion engines and such. However, in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, the Hendenburg, which originated in Germany, wasn't able

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Speaker 1: to import heli because well, it's nineteen thirties, it's Germany.

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Speaker 1: Nazis were in power, and even though World War Two

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Speaker 1: had not really started yet and the United States certainly

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Speaker 1: wasn't pulled into it, the US was already let's say,

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Speaker 1: concerned about Germany and refused to export helium to the Germans,

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Speaker 1: so instead they used hydrogen, and thus the die was

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Speaker 1: cast for the Hendenburg. The use of the hydrogen balloon

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Speaker 1: also taught us that if you go to a high

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Speaker 1: enough altitude, your ears go pop and that can hurt. Also,

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Speaker 1: researchers started to carry meteorological instruments like thermometers and barometers

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Speaker 1: aboard the hydrogen balloons. So these became the first weather

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Speaker 1: balloons of a sort, but they were manned. Unmanned weather

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Speaker 1: balloons would have to wait nearly a century. So by

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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety four, balloons were a known thing. And during

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Speaker 1: the French Revolution wars in which countries like Britain and

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Speaker 1: Austria would to war against France, largely because it's pretty

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Speaker 1: scary to see these common French peasants overthrow the previously

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Speaker 1: unassailable monarchy and the noble classes, the French military would

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Speaker 1: use balloons to get a bird's eye view of the battlefield.

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Speaker 1: I'll explain more when we come back from this quick break. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So we had French military officials using balloons in order

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Speaker 1: to get a high altitude view of areas like potential

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Speaker 1: battlefields or even actual battlefield conditions like active conditions during combat.

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Speaker 1: It turned out that these uses were at best distractions.

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Speaker 1: They were not providing really useful info. Apparently, the reports

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Speaker 1: of the time said that they had no impact whatsoever

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Speaker 1: on the course of battles. So early on they had

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Speaker 1: hardly any impact. But flash forward a little more than

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Speaker 1: half a century and head on over to the United

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Speaker 1: States and we would see another use of observation balloons,

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Speaker 1: this time during the US Civil War. So you had

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Speaker 1: the Union and you had the Confederates, and both sides

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Speaker 1: of the conflict used balloons to gather observations of the

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Speaker 1: enemy and to map out battlefields. So in this case

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Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily during an actual battle, but sometimes it

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Speaker 1: was just to get a really good bird's eye view

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Speaker 1: of a battlefield, map out where units could take position,

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Speaker 1: places that they should avoid, just conditions they need to

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Speaker 1: be aware of before they go into battles so that

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Speaker 1: they're not finding out while you know, warfare is breaking

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Speaker 1: out all around them, and it starts to make a

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Speaker 1: little sense. And this was all in an effort to

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Speaker 1: just provide intelligence to military units on the ground. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Confederates had their share of military balloons, but the

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Speaker 1: Union side historically made better use of this technology. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the Confederates were experimenting with submarines. It was a really

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Speaker 1: scary time for military innovation because these were all in

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Speaker 1: many cases unproven technologies where people were being put at

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Speaker 1: risk in order to test them. Now, both sides used

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Speaker 1: gas balloons for this purpose. They weren't using hot air balloons,

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Speaker 1: They're using gas balloons. They tried using balloons to extend

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Speaker 1: communication lines, but they found that the actual use of

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Speaker 1: this was tricky. It was hard to read signals that

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Speaker 1: were sent by balloonists. They were relying on things like

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Speaker 1: signal flags, which could be difficult to see. Some of

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Speaker 1: them were even outfitted with telegraph wires that extended down

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Speaker 1: to the ground, but those ended up being a little

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Speaker 1: fiddly as well. However, the idea was sound, even though

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Speaker 1: the implementation was a bit lack Again, like, this was

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Speaker 1: all unfolding in the middle of a war, so it

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Speaker 1: was tricky to get things to work just right while

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Speaker 1: you're out in the field while it's all happening. The

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Speaker 1: first weather balloons to carry instruments but not people, would

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Speaker 1: arrive in the eighteen nineties back in France, where this

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Speaker 1: whole business got started, essentially a century after balloons were

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Speaker 1: first being used for surveillance in wartime conditions. These weather

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00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,360
Speaker 1: balloons had an open bottom and they were gas balloons,

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Speaker 1: and so when they would be released during the day,

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Speaker 1: the lighter than air balloon would rise up into the sky.

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Speaker 1: They would carry all these instruments that would record measurements.

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Speaker 1: At night, the gases would cool down enough for the

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Speaker 1: balloon to start deflating. You had air pressure that was

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Speaker 1: forcing gases out, and the balloon would start to come down,

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Speaker 1: and the idea was to retrieve the instruments and record

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Speaker 1: the readings as quickly as possible in order to track

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Speaker 1: weather conditions. This was not always easy because the balloons

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Speaker 1: had a tendency to drift, sometimes by hundreds of miles,

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Speaker 1: so sometimes the data you got back wasn't necessarily the

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Speaker 1: most useful. But not long after this, early meteorologists came

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Speaker 1: up with a better plan. So instead of using an

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Speaker 1: open ended balloon, where you know, you're essentially releasing a

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Speaker 1: bag filled with light gas up into the sky, they

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Speaker 1: would use a sealed balloon that was filled with lighter

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Speaker 1: than air gas. They would release this balloon into the air.

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Speaker 1: It would ascend up into the sky, and as the

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Speaker 1: air around the balloon would get thinner at higher altitudes,

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Speaker 1: the balloon would swell because there was less air pressure

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Speaker 1: on the outside of the balloon than there was on

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Speaker 1: the inside of the balloon at that altitude. You've probably

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Speaker 1: seen pictures of balloons that looked incredibly spherical way up

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Speaker 1: in altitude, but when they were first launched they and

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Speaker 1: look like that at all. Now, the material on these

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00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:06,480
Speaker 1: balloons was also really thin. These days we make them

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Speaker 1: out of latex, and because they're thin, this material is

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Speaker 1: so thin at higher altitudes. As the balloon stretches and

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Speaker 1: stretches and stretches, as it swells up, it begins to tear.

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Speaker 1: And when it tears, then the gas escapes the balloon

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Speaker 1: and it starts to come tumbling down. Now, the meteorologists,

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Speaker 1: they knew this was going to happen, so what they

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Speaker 1: did was they attached a small parachute to the payload

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Speaker 1: to the instrument bundle, so that the parachute would deploy

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Speaker 1: as the bundle was falling, and then the payload could

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Speaker 1: float down rather than crash down. And we still use

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Speaker 1: weather balloons that use this method today, though obviously now

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Speaker 1: we can include devices that send out a radio signal

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00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:51,840
Speaker 1: that make it way easier to track down where those

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Speaker 1: instruments have landed once they do. So, by the time

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Speaker 1: you get to the early twentieth century, balloons have become

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Speaker 1: a common tool the militaries. They were in fact in

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Speaker 1: heavy use in World War One among pretty much all

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Speaker 1: the countries involved in the conflict. The potential for spies

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00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:11,240
Speaker 1: to use balloons to uncover enemy positions and battlefield conditions

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00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:15,480
Speaker 1: were enough to prompt the various militaries to target balloons

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Speaker 1: with high priority. They became important targets for the military.

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Speaker 1: This is also in balloons, often in the form of

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Speaker 1: dirigibles like the Hindenburg, were used as weaponized vehicles. Some

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00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:32,320
Speaker 1: dirigibles had machine guns mounted within the cabin, or they

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Speaker 1: carried a payload of bombs. But that starts to get

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Speaker 1: outside the surveillance and spy stuff, so I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to spend any real time talking about that. That's a

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Speaker 1: separate episode. Also in World War One and into World

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Speaker 1: War Two, some countries started to use what we're called

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Speaker 1: barrage balloons. Now, these were a defensive measure, So essentially

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00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: the idea was to attach steel cables to unmanned balloons,

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Speaker 1: and if there was an incoming attack by a you

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00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: could release the balloons and they would go up into

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Speaker 1: the air, lifting these cables up in the air, and

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00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 1: the cables would serve as obstacles for enemy aircraft. Like

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00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:14,359
Speaker 1: you would just have these balloons holding taut cables still

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Speaker 1: attached to the ground, and aircraft if they were to

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00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:21,879
Speaker 1: try and fly through the area could get tangled up.

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Speaker 1: They could foul the aircraft and cause them to crash,

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Speaker 1: or it would force pilots to climb at a higher

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00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 1: altitude to fly over these barrage balloons, but that would

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00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: bring them within range of anti aircraft weaponry. So it

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Speaker 1: was all meant to dissuade aerial attacks, all right. But

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00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 1: back to observation balloons. In the nineteen forties, General Mills yep,

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Speaker 1: the food company, the one famous for cereal, created balloons

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Speaker 1: designed to ascend all the way up into the stratosphere.

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Speaker 1: The aeronautical arm of General Mills, which is wild to

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Speaker 1: think about, would use these balloons to lift instrumentation way

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Speaker 1: way up in the sky, typically to do stuff like

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Speaker 1: study weather conditions and also detect radiation in the upper atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: They used essentially what was the similar to a photographic plate,

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Speaker 1: where instead of using light to create an image, it

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Speaker 1: was there to detect nuclear radiation that could hit the

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Speaker 1: plate and create an image that we could then see

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Speaker 1: once we retrieved this when it came back to the ground.

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00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: So these balloons were not meant to spy on people.

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00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: They were meant to make observations about weather and science,

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Speaker 1: potentially detecting nuclear radiation which could be related to espionage

380
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:50,640
Speaker 1: or at least intelligence gathering. This whole thing was called

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00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,919
Speaker 1: Project Skyhook, and it fell under the administration of the

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Speaker 1: Office of Naval Research in the United States, with the

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Speaker 1: Atomic Energy Commission joining in a little bit later. These

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Speaker 1: balloons would typically jettison their payload, which would then descend

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Speaker 1: via parachute for retrieval by a ground team or a

386
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: water team, as the case may be, and the work

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00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: done there would then inform later espionage efforts. See if

388
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: you could send balloons way, way, way up into the sky,

389
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 1: maybe you could do that so that they could potentially

390
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: take photographs or film of the land that was beneath,

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00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: so that, you know, you could get an idea where

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00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: someone might be, I don't know, trying to hide nuclear

393
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:37,120
Speaker 1: silos in their country, or military bases or whatnot. And

394
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: so in the late nineteen forties and into the nineteen fifties,

395
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: the US began to rely on balloons to lift surveillance

396
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: payloads into high altitudes, expressly for the purpose of photographing

397
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 1: the then Soviet Union as well as China. The two

398
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: massive communist powers that the US was convinced served as

399
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 1: existential threats to truth, justice, and the American way, so

400
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 1: the only way to really defend yourself is to snoop

401
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 1: on them. Now. One early example of this was called

402
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: Project Mogul, which technically started before Projects Skyhook did with

403
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: General Mills. But Mogul's purpose was to carry equipment designed

404
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: to detect sound, but not just any sound. Instead, it

405
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 1: was designed to detect sound that would come in the

406
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: wake of the detonation of atomic bombs. The thought was

407
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 1: an atomic bomb detonation would create sound that would travel

408
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: in a channel, high, high, high up in the atmosphere.

409
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: So the US was concerned that the Soviet Union was

410
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: testing atomic weapons and they wanted to keep an ear

411
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: out for that. And the US had already demonstrated atomic

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00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: weapons being extremely effective if you wanted to wipe out

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Speaker 1: an entire city, because they had done it twice already.

414
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Speaker 1: By the way, balloons like the ones the US released

415
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 1: and the ones that China has released have a pretty

416
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:06,199
Speaker 1: huge overlap. In the ven diagram that has balloons in

417
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: one circle and UFOs in the other circle like a

418
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:14,239
Speaker 1: really big overlap. UFO stands for unidentified flying object, and

419
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 1: that's all that UFO actually means, right Like, it literally

420
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 1: means you see something that's in the air and you

421
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: can't figure out what it is. So it's a UFO.

422
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: It's unidentified, it is flying, and it's something an object.

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00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,120
Speaker 1: What UFO does not mean, at least it doesn't intrinsically mean,

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Speaker 1: is that it's an extra terrestrial object. That is, that

425
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: it's something that's not from Earth. But over the years,

426
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: we've kind of conflated these two things that UFOs and

427
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: aliens are one and the same, or rather that UFOs

428
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: are what aliens used to tool around in our solar system.

429
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: But no, UFOs are just stuff what's up in the sky,

430
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: but we ain't sure what it is yet. And when

431
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: you look at balloons, especially weather or surveillance balloons, you

432
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: can really understand how this can happen because I think

433
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,479
Speaker 1: a lot of people think, well, of course I know

434
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,479
Speaker 1: what a balloon looks like. I'm not going to mistake

435
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: a balloon for something else. But at lower altitudes, these

436
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: balloons are tear drop sheepd right with the bulbous part

437
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: of the tear at the top of the balloon. They

438
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: look like they've been released prematurely, like ah, you let

439
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: go before you've finished filling it up. It's not full

440
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: of gas. This, however, is done on purpose, because, as

441
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, as these balloons rise in altitude, they

442
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: move into areas of lower air pressure and they expand.

443
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 1: The balloons get bigger and bigger. So a balloon that's

444
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: tear drop shaped at a low altitude turns into this

445
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: enormous sphere as it climbs to upper altitudes, and like

446
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: I said, it eventually can pop or rather the material again.

447
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: Typically latex will tear and then release gas and cause

448
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 1: the balloon to deflate quickly, or sometimes they'll just completely

449
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: rip apart and the stuff what the balloon was carrying

450
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: comes crashing down. In nineteen forty seven, a rancher named

451
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: WW mac Brazil was driving across his land with his

452
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 1: son Vernon, and the two encountered something weird. They found

453
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: a mass of fabric, rubber, metallic foil, and some other

454
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: stuff that was heaped on the ground. So the rancher

455
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: collected as much of this stuff as he could, and

456
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: then a few days later he drove it down to Roswell,

457
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: New Mexico, to hand it over to the local sheriff.

458
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: This innocent chain of events would eventually be reported as

459
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 1: a rancher having salvaged the wreckage of a flying saucer. Now,

460
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: the US military thought maybe it was best to just

461
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: let the flying saucer story go unchallenged, because the truth

462
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: of the matter was the balloon was part of the

463
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: aforementioned Project Mogul. But you were entering into an era

464
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 1: of observations by balloon, and so there were a lot

465
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: of UFOs that were out there, not extraterrestrial, but unidentified

466
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: by the people on the ground. And because the US

467
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: military didn't want to talk about espionage, because despite what

468
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: a certain James Bond would have you believe, it's best

469
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: not to walk into a room and introduce yourself as

470
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: a spy to everybody, folks were left to fill in

471
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: the gaps of their understanding with all sorts of speculation

472
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: and nonsense. They weren't told that the US was using

473
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: balloons to try and keep tabs on the Soviet Union

474
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: because the US didn't want the Soviet Union to know that,

475
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: So they were left to just kind of figure out

476
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: what the heck this stuff was. Even when a Kentucky

477
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: National Guard pilot and military pilot died in an accident

478
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty seven while he was trying to identify

479
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: an object in the sky that was very likely an

480
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: observation balloon, the military states silent on this because that

481
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: was classified. Not even pilots were told that there were

482
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: this there was a surveillance balloon program that was active.

483
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: That kind of silence continues to this very day. All Right,

484
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another break. When we come back, we'll

485
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: continue the history of spy balloons, all right, So we

486
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: talked about Project Mogul, which was designed to listen in

487
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: for the evidence of atomic weapon detonations, but for more

488
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: direct observation, the US created a couple of projects, one

489
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: called Project moby Dick and another one called Project Genetrics.

490
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: These were balloons that carried cameras that were meant to

491
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: gather intels, specifically on the Soviet Union and on China,

492
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: and they would float at altitudes of more than fifty

493
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: thousand feet, which put them out of range of fighter

494
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: aircraft at the time. Because it's pretty common for these

495
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,479
Speaker 1: aircraft not to have sort of oxygen equipment, so they

496
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: couldn't go and higher altitudes pilots would pass out they

497
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to breathe. So the idea was that

498
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: these balloons would remain out of reach of Soviet forces,

499
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: but they would still be able to take detailed photographs

500
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: and film of the ground below. But she still had

501
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: to retrieve the darned things. By the way. They would

502
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: release these in various places around the world, like in Turkey, Norway, Scotland,

503
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: and they would just let the air currents carry the

504
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: balloons across the Eastern Asian continent. Well, there were a

505
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: couple of ways that the US would try to retrieve

506
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 1: these payloads once they had drifted across the USSR and China.

507
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: One was just to wait until payload released from its

508
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: balloon parachuted into the Sea of Japan, whereupon a US

509
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: Navy vessel would rendezvous and pick up the payload. But

510
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: the other was to use an aircraft to catch the

511
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: payload as it was falling in midair. This aircraft was

512
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: the C one nineteen flying box car. This aircraft was

513
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: used for tons of different stuff, including deploying airborne troops.

514
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: So like parachute corps would jump out of C one nineteens.

515
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: But this aircraft could also go long for a hail

516
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: merry pass, which is my dumb way of saying. They

517
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: could be outfitted with equipment designed to snag a descending payload.

518
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: But the Soviets caught on to the Shenanigans for one thing.

519
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours, these balloons would drift at

520
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: a significantly lower altitude. Again, this is because the gas

521
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: inside the balloons would cool down overnight. Then as they cooled,

522
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: they became more dense and they lost some of the

523
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: balloons buoyancy. Then they would float low enough for some

524
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: Soviet aircraft to fire upon these surveillance balloons. And so

525
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: really just a fraction of the balloons launched were ever retrieved.

526
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: I think they launched more than five hundred of one

527
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: of these, and I think around fifty were finally retrieved.

528
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was not great odds. The Soviets managed

529
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: to get hold of some of the payloads and they said, hey,

530
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: United States, stop violating our sovereignty by sending these spy

531
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: balloons over our country. And the US responded in a

532
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: couple of different ways. One was to say, hey, easy comrade,

533
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: these are just weather balloons. We're just studying the weather,

534
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: you know, all over the world to get a better

535
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: idea how weather and climate patterns happened. No big deal,

536
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: we can't even control where these things go. The other

537
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: strategy was to say, hey, nobody owns the upper atmosphere.

538
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: Airspace only extends as far up as you can use it,

539
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: and you don't have any aircraft that can go that high,

540
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: so go pound sand. As you can imagine. The Soviets

541
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: didn't they guy. These responses had very much merit to them,

542
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: But the US would end up migrating away from balloons

543
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:09,240
Speaker 1: as a main method of spying, not necessarily because balloons

544
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 1: were ineffective, but because the United States had secretly developed

545
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: aircraft like fixed wing aircraft that could fly at extreme altitudes,

546
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: namely the U two spy plane. And for those of

547
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: y'all interested in that story, I recommend searching the Tech

548
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: Stuff archives for our old episodes about the U two,

549
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: because that story is crazy all on its own. Also,

550
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen fifties we started getting into the

551
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: space age. Spootnick was the first man made satellite to

552
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: go into orbit. It was launched on October fourth, nineteen

553
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: fifty seven. It essentially just went beep, sent out a

554
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 1: little radio signal as it moved through its orbital pattern.

555
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,280
Speaker 1: But this still had an enormous impact around the world.

556
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: For one thing, folks in the United States became terrified

557
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: because if the USSR could launch a payload into space,

558
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: then they potentially launch a nuclear weapon at the United

559
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 1: States aboard an intercontinental ballistic missile. Then America suddenly felt

560
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: a threat that earlier had been hard for them to

561
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 1: really imagine, because otherwise the thought was they would have

562
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: to fly nuclear payloads over in bomber aircraft which could

563
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: be intercepted between the USSR the United States. Now there

564
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: was this very real threat of things being delivered via missile.

565
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: But in addition to this fun source of existential dread,

566
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: there was also the concern that should you create a

567
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: satellite that was capable of maintaining orbit for a while,

568
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: and you outfit it with the right kinds of equipment,

569
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: it would pass over the Earth in arcs that could

570
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: gather information using stuff like powerful cameras, you could spy

571
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: on other countries well beyond even the stratosphere. And sure,

572
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 1: at first we would need to be able to retrieve

573
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: the payloads of these dallites. They wouldn't be designed to

574
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: stay up there Perpetually, they would come down and we

575
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: would have to retrieve them in order to get the

576
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: information that was captured. But over time we'd be able

577
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: to maintain a live connection with these satellites. So we

578
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: were entering the era of satellite surveillance. However, balloons would

579
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: continue to remain useful. For one thing, you could deploy

580
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: balloons pretty quickly, whereas with satellites there's a whole lot

581
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: of prep work that goes into it. Even if you

582
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: want to divert a satellite, that's not always possible, and

583
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: when it is, it's not always easy, So sometimes you

584
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: need to have an alternative that you can use quickly. Also,

585
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 1: balloons remain useful because folks expect higher tech approaches to surveillance.

586
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: America used helium balloons carrying cameras both infrared and visible

587
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: light video cameras to surveil a rock nearly twenty years ago,

588
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: around two thousand and four. The US also made similar

589
00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: use of observation balloons over Afghanistan during that extremely long war. Okay,

590
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: so we get to the point now where surveillance balloons

591
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: can be more sophisticated. Right, you can have a surveillance

592
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: balloon that has a perpetual radio connection back to a

593
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: control point, so you can get real time data from

594
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: these surveillance balloons. It's no longer let it go hope

595
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: that you can retrieve it later and then get to

596
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: the data. Then now we can have a perpetual signal.

597
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: When you can pair it with stuff like solar panels,

598
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 1: then the balloons payload can continue to draw a power

599
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: from solar power and be an action longer. These are

600
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: things that were not possible, you know, obviously early on

601
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,439
Speaker 1: in the use of spy balloons. But now let's get

602
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: to the Chinese balloon that got us started on this

603
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: whole topic. On January twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, the

604
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is a part of

605
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: a US military organization, detects and begins to track a

606
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: balloon that's drifting over Alaska, which is in the northwest

607
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: of the United States. It borders Canada, it is not

608
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,839
Speaker 1: part of the contiguous US At the time. The agency

609
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: determined that there was no risk from the balloon, either

610
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: from physical threats or from surveillance, so the agency decided

611
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: to just continue tracking it there was Since it didn't

612
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 1: stand as a threat, there was no reason to intervene

613
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: at that moment. On January thirtieth, the balloon drifted over

614
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:37,280
Speaker 1: into Canadian airspace. Nor Rad kept eyes on the balloon,

615
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: and experts determined that, based upon the fact the balloon

616
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: had solar panels to power its payload, the balloon's purpose

617
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: was likely to gather intelligence. It was most likely a

618
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: spy balloon. They also saw that the balloon appeared to

619
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: be outfitted with propellers and motors, indicating that it could

620
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,839
Speaker 1: be radio controlled to direct its flight, so it could

621
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: at least move in areas that we're not just determined

622
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: by air currents. On January thirty first, twenty twenty three,

623
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: the balloon passed out of Canadian airspace and back over

624
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: into US airspace. This time it was over Idaho, and

625
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 1: it's at this point that the US President, Joe Biden,

626
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: ordered the military to shoot down the balloon. The military

627
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: decided it was best to shoot down the balloon when

628
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: it wasn't over a populated area, both to minimize the

629
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:34,479
Speaker 1: chance for damage to citizens and citizen property, as well

630
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 1: as to increase the chances that the military would be

631
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: able to retrieve the payload. Plus, at the time, the

632
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: balloon was not passing over any really secret bases or

633
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:51,479
Speaker 1: anything or military operations, so they were thinking, if it's

634
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: over Idaho and it's not over something sensitive, we can

635
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: let it be for now and wait for it to

636
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: move over to a place where we can take it

637
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: down safely. In the time, the military continued to track

638
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: the progress of the balloon and started to make proactive

639
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: decisions to prevent it from being able to gather any

640
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: useful intelligence. They would postpone or cancel things that would

641
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:15,479
Speaker 1: potentially get picked up by the balloon. They curtailed all

642
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: unencrypted communication so that the balloon wouldn't be able to

643
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: pick up on radio communications between military units that might

644
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: give some sensitive information to the Chinese. They were minimizing

645
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,240
Speaker 1: the amount of information that this balloon could potentially snoop

646
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: in on and send back to China. The next couple

647
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: of days had the US tracking the balloon. Some folks

648
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 1: on the conservative side of the political spectrum began to

649
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: criticize the Biden administration for not taking action already they

650
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: didn't have all the information, though personally, I think trying

651
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: to avoid having debris hit citizens as a worthwhile endeavor,

652
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: but then what do I know? Anyway, By Friday, February third,

653
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: China had actually owned up to having launched this balloon.

654
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: But China was claiming that it was essentially a weather

655
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: balloon that just got blown off course, that this was

656
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: not intended to fly into US airspace and in fact

657
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: was part of a scientific operation, and the fact that

658
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: it was outfitted with propellers and motors kind of contradicted

659
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: that claim a bit. And the US said, we are

660
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: not buying it because we use that same excuse with

661
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 1: the Soviets back in the fifties, and we know it's

662
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: a lie because we lied back then. And further, the

663
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 1: US said this was a violation of its sovereignty. Also

664
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: interesting side note, when it comes to airspace, we actually

665
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: do not have a firm international agreement on the vertical

666
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: limitations of airspace, Like we know how far out it

667
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:45,839
Speaker 1: extends from a country, but we don't know how far

668
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: up it extends. At least we don't agree on that.

669
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: And this gets complicated because stuff like satellites obviously can

670
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: cross the entire planet many times in a day, like

671
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: some do a full orbit in like ninety minutes, so

672
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: if you had to quest permission to cross over the

673
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: areas that a satellite was traveling around, that would be impractical.

674
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: So we're kind of in a murky area here. Well.

675
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: On Saturday, February fourth and f twenty two, Stealth Fighter,

676
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world,

677
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: takes off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, flies

678
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: to an area off the coast of South Carolina, and

679
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 1: it fires an AIM nine X sidewinder air to air

680
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: missile at this balloon, which at that point was at

681
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 1: an altitude of between sixty thousand and sixty five thousand feet.

682
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the balloon did not survive this encounter

683
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: with a missile. The wreckage fell into an area that's

684
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: about six miles off the coast of South Carolina. This

685
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: is well within the twelve miles of territorial waters, so

686
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: this still makes it a US based operation. The US

687
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: still has sovereignty over that water. The Department of Defense

688
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: issues a statement that reassures US citizens that the balloon

689
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,959
Speaker 1: never posed any sort of physical threat, so it wasn't

690
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: carrying a weapons payload, but that it did violate US sovereignty.

691
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: Further review of earlier intelligence then revealed that China had

692
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: flown balloons over the US at least four times in

693
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: the recent past that were not intercepted or taken down.

694
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: Three of those incidents happened while Trump was president. One

695
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: happened earlier in Biden's presidency. On February tenth, twenty twenty three,

696
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: the US shot down a quote unquote high altitude object

697
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: off the coast of Alaska. Not at the time, the

698
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: US wasn't sure if it was in fact a balloon,

699
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: let alone where it came from. Further investigation indicated that

700
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 1: this particular object was from quote commercial or research entities

701
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: and therefore totally benign end quote that's according to the

702
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: White House. So in other words, they shot down a

703
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: balloon that was not intended to be used for surveillance,

704
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 1: but was for some other purpose. And you might, I'd say,

705
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: this whole balloon thing is kind of taken off, and

706
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: that the military reaction has similarly been on an upward trajectory.

707
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 1: Dad jokes. The Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade a

708
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: hobbyist group that sends up helium balloons with small payloads,

709
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:21,720
Speaker 1: the sort of pico balloon approach just to do stuff

710
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 1: like gathered data, which can end up being things like

711
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: to help with weather models. They can take photos, high

712
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: altitude photos. It's really meant to be a science based hobby,

713
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: and there are like websites out there that will sell

714
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: you the kits and the and the balloons that you

715
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: can use to launch these sorts of things. Anyway, this

716
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: hobbyist group reported that one of its balloons was quote

717
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: unquote missing in action. Further, it reported that the last

718
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: known location was over Alaska, and that on February eleventh

719
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 1: and F twenty two jets shot down an unidentified airborne

720
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: object in that ural vicinity. So the implication is that

721
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: the US military and what is perhaps an overabundance of

722
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: caution or you could argue paranoia, shot down a hobbyist

723
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 1: weather balloon. Now, according to weatherboy dot com, the balloon

724
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 1: probably costs somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve bucks, and

725
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: the payload was also probably around that same amount of money. Now,

726
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: I do not know what the F twenty two used

727
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: to take down this particular unidentified object, nor can I

728
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: even say that the F twenty two actually shot down

729
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: the hobbyist balloon. These could be two separate events that

730
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: they may not be the hobbyist balloon that this F

731
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: twenty two took down. It could just be coincidence. However,

732
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,720
Speaker 1: what I can say is that a single sidewinder missile

733
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: costs nearly four hundred thousand dollars. So it's tempting for

734
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 1: me to joke that the United States wasted a four

735
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars weapon to take down a twelve dollar

736
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: helium balloon carrying a similarly priced hobbyist payload. But we

737
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 1: do not know that for certain. I do not know

738
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: that the object that the F twenty two shot down

739
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 1: was this hobbyist balloon. I don't know what method the

740
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: pilot used to take down the object. Maybe they didn't

741
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 1: use a sidewinder missile at all. So I cannot really

742
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: be as irresponsible as to joke about it, But boy

743
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 1: do I really want to. So. Surveillance balloons are still

744
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: very much a thing, But so our balloons meant to

745
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: make scientific observations and to increase our understanding of how

746
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: the world and beyond works. This creates a complicated issue, right,

747
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: how do you determine if a balloon stands as a

748
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: threat to intelligence or is just there to further our knowledge.

749
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: There aren't really easy answers to this. The more you

750
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: know about the origins of the balloon, the more the

751
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 1: more you can guess at the intent for that balloon.

752
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: And I think that's really what you have to rely upon.

753
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if you don't act well,

754
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: then you get criticized, right because we saw that happen

755
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: with the first balloon back earlier in February, that if

756
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: you don't act, you stand at risk of being criticized

757
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 1: by the opposition for failing to take the safety of

758
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: the United States seriously. However, if you act prematurely, then

759
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: you get criticized of being trigger happy and shooting down

760
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: legitimate scientific oriented equipment. It turns into a no win situation,

761
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: right You act too quickly and you're seen as being

762
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: irresponsible and paranoid. You don't act quickly enough, you're criticized

763
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: of not taking security seriously. I don't really have an

764
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: answer for how we solve this issue. It is a

765
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,399
Speaker 1: really difficult one to do. It might even be one

766
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: of China's objectives, right, like not just to gather surveillance

767
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: but to create this kind of environment where the current

768
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: administration really has a no win situation on their hands.

769
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: They get criticized no matter what they do or don't

770
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: do in the case of waiting. So yeah, complicated thing.

771
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 1: I don't think we're going to see surveillance balloons go

772
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: away too soon, because again, they can be effective even

773
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: if it's just a form of psychological warfare. But I

774
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: thought this would be an interesting topic. Hope you agree.

775
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in

776
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: the future of this show, reach out to me and

777
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 1: let me know. You can go on Twitter, tweet at me.

778
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: The show's handle is tech Stuff HSW or you can

779
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: download the iHeartRadio app, navigate over to the tech Stuff

780
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: page by using a little search tool, hit that little

781
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 1: microphone icon, leave me a voice message up to thirty

782
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: seconds in like let me know what you would like

783
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: to hear and I'll talk to you again really soon.

784
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

785
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

786
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:19,920
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